This discussion over the fate of the article has direct relevance to those wanting to shift to digital first. Going digital does not mean merely putting articles online before the presses roll, as then print still rules the process. No – digital first means the net must drive all decisions: how news is covered, in what form, by whom, and when. It dictates that when journalists know something, they are prepared to share it with their public. They may share what they know before their knowledge is complete so the public can help fill in blanks.

In this way, digital first resets the journalistic relationship with the community, making the news organisation less a producer and more an open platform for the public to share what it knows. It is to that process that the journalist adds value. She may do so in many forms – reporting, curating people and their information, providing applications and tools, gathering data, organising effort, educating participants … and writing articles.

When people say they like newspapers and books they aren’t just talking about the physical form of them: the feel and smell, the portability and tangibility. They are talking about the finiteness of them. Articles and books have beginnings and ends; they have boundaries and limits; they are packaged neatly in boxes with bows on top; they are a product of scarcity. Abundance is unsettling. That is precisely why the internet is disruptive not only to business and government but to culture and cognition. Threatening the dominion of the article is to threaten our very worldview.

« The English-language CBC and Canlit as a whole do tend to promote the idea of literature as a series of historical injustices about which we must feel ashamed, for the good of our souls and of our country » vs funny Québec literature !? https://t.co/ssIbztScoF

Dear faculty - I know it is hard but try not to be paranoid. We aren’t biased against you any more than we are biased against everyone. And the administration isn’t out to get you personally, even it if sometimes seems that way. You just aren’t that important to us.